Broochesare perhaps the oldest type of jewelry. When man first took to wearing something more than a loin cloth, there emanated the necessity of holding the cloth together. The thorn or "spina" was probably the first of these pins, with pins of other material, like flint, found in the caves of the Paleolithic age. Pins of bronze were in common use during the bronze age.

Spinel is thought extracted from either the Latin word, "spina", meaning thorn, due to its pointed crystal form, or the Greek word for "spark", due to its bright colour. Spinel occurs in as rose pink to rich red; lavender to deep violet; light to deep blue, orange, yellow, brown and black.

​Pyrope Garnet vs Rhodolite Garnet. The word Pyrope came from Greek meaning “fiery-eyed” where Garnet came from Latin meaning “dark-red”. It’s thought the word could have been extracted from the word “Pomegranate”. Rhodolite meaning “rose-colored” refers to its pinkish hue. It was started used by Egyptian and Roman back thousand years.

​Sri Lanka has a long history of heating their rubies to enhance the reddish-pink color, and remove any bluish or purplish hues from sapphire. Sri Lanka's "burners" traditionally apply heat treatment using a blow-pipe and charcoal burner.

​Sri Lanka (Ceylon), a tropical island situated in the Indian Ocean, gained its popularity to be named as the “Gem Island”. The country owned its name with abundance of treasure of precious gems, and is one of the major hubs of gem mining in the world. ​The traditional mining areas are located in the Ratnapura district, about 100 kilometers south-east of the capital of Colombo. Gem mining in Sri Lanka is primarily from alluvial secondary deposits found in gem-bearing river gravels, in ancient flood plains and streams that are now covered with productive farm land and terraced rice paddies. To access the gem-bearing gravel, 5 to 50 foot deep mining pits are dug by the workers, pumping out any ground-water as it enters the hole from below. When the pit is dug to the correct depth, tunnels are dug horizontally in several directions to minimize surface degradation.

A conical-shaped baskets is used to extract the gems from the clay, gravel and sand slurry. The basket is swirled around until the heavier stones settle to the bottom of the basket.